商业企业现代化之路--观念转变与创新

当今,商业流通领域中不同所有制、不同业态、不同环节的企业已经基本站在了同一起跑线上,进行着平等的竞争,同时,还面临着与外资商业企业利用“国际游戏规则”进行的更为宽泛的竞争。此时对商业企业现代化提出了要求。在商业企业现代化的进程中,观念的创新与转变是根本。本文从理论和实践的角度探讨了现代社会对商业企业管理者个人能力提出的新要求、阻碍其观念创新的因素以及如何进行观念创新等问题。     

The use of management control systems to manage CSR strategy: A levers of control perspective

Little is known about the role of management control systems (MCS) in managing the strategic processes that underpin Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). To enhance our understanding of this phenomenon, this study employs Simons’ (1995) levers of control framework to explore how organizations leverage MCS in different ways in order to drive strategic renewal and trigger organizational change while simultaneously supporting society's broader sustainability agenda. Drawing on data gathered from France's largest listed companies – members of the CAC 40 – we provide insights into the structures and processes that companies employ to design, implement and monitor their CSR strategy. In doing so, we provide evidence of the way that organizations seek to attain their CSR objectives, and of the relationship between the management of CSR and other business processes. Of particular interest is the role of the levers of control in enabling managers to identify and manage threats and opportunities associated with CSR strategy, thus forming risk management processes that support organizations in their attainment of strategic objectives. Furthermore, the study provides evidence suggesting the use of MCS has the potential to contribute to society's broader sustainability agenda through processes that enable innovation, communication, reporting, and the identification of threats and opportunities.     

Creating project plans to focus product development

The long-term competitiveness of most manufacturers depends on their product development capabilities. Yet few companies approach the development process systematically or strategically. They end up with an unruly collection of projects that do not match long-term business objectives and that consume far more development resources than are available. Instead of working on important projects, development engineers spend their time fighting fires. Their productivity sinks, and products are invariably late to market. To attack development malaise and reinvigorate the process, companies should put together an "aggregate project plan." The plan helps managers restructure the development process so they no longer think in terms of individual projects but in terms of the "set" of projects. It is the set, not individual projects, that shapes the creation of a successful product line. The aggregate project plan also helps managers allocate resources, sequence projects, and build critical development capabilities. A central element of the aggregate project plan is the project map. The map categorizes projects into five types: breakthrough, platform, derivative, research and development, and partnerships. Each project type has its own unique characteristics and requires a different amount of development time. Companies should have projects in all categories to ensure a robust development process.     

Knowing a winning business idea when you see one

Identifying which business ideas have real commercial potential is fraught with uncertainty, and even the most admired companies have stumbled. It's not as if they don't know what the challenges of innovation are. A new product has to offer customers exceptional utility at an attractive price, and the company must be able to deliver it at a tidy profit. But the uncertainties surrounding innovation are so great that even the most insightful managers have a hard time evaluating the commercial readiness of new business ideas. In this article, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne introduce three tools that managers can use to help strip away some of that uncertainty. The first tool, "the buyer utility map," indicates how likely it is that customers will be attracted to a new business idea. The second, "the price corridor of the mass," identifies what price will unlock the greatest number of customers. And the third tool, "the business model guide," offers a framework for figuring out whether and how a company can profitably deliver the new idea at the targeted price. Applying the tools, though, is not the end of the story. Many innovations have to overcome adoption hurdles--strong resistance from stakeholders inside and outside the company. Often overlooked in the planning process, adoption hurdles can make or break the commercial viability of even the most powerful new ideas. The authors conclude by discussing how managers can head off negative reactions from stakeholders.     

Management Control Systems in NPOs: An Italian Survey

This paper tries to point out the role and the characteristics of management control systems (MCS) in organisations whose main goal is not for profit (NPO). Are MCS a necessary or (at least) a useful tool to manage these organisations? How have they to fit the typical nature of NPOs? Are the traditional control processes (planning, programming, budgeting, reporting) effective in NPOs? What kind of information do they use? What is the 'state of the art' and the degree of sophistication of MCS in NPOs? To address these issues, a survey has been conducted among 76 Italian NPO top managers, and the results are reported in this paper.     

Tax credit rating and corporate innovation decisions

The tax credit rating mechanism was formally implemented in 2014. As an important tax collection and management innovation, it has attracted the attention of regulatory authorities and scholars. Different from the literature that directly examines corporate tax compliance, we focus on the impact of tax credit rating implementation on corporate research and development (R&D) investment decisions. Using listed companies’ data from 2014 to 2019, we find that companies with higher tax credit ratings invest more in innovation, because the system helps managers identify R&D opportunities, alleviates corporate financing constraints and reduces agency costs. We confirm that tax credit ratings have manifold impacts on corporate information environments and business decisions, with better ratings positively affecting firms’ business decisions. This discovery can inform tax policy reform, encourage corporate innovation and construct social credit systems.     

Integrative strategic performance measurement systems,strategic alignment of manufacturing,learning and strategic outcomes: an exploratory study

There is considerable interest in the role of strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS), such as balanced scorecards, in assisting managers develop competitive strategies. A distinctive feature of SPMS is that they are designed to present managers with financial and non-financial measures covering different perspectives which, in combination, provide a way of translating strategy into a coherent set of performance measures. There appears to be wide variation in how these systems are configured. However, as yet, there has been little consideration given to identifying underlying information characteristics that might help explain how the systems have beneficial effects. This study identifies a key dimension of SPMS, integrative information, as being instrumental in assisting managers deliver positive strategic outcomes. Three interrelated dimensions of integrative SPMS were identified in this study. The first, strategic and operational linkages, was a generic factor that captures the overall extent to which the systems provide for integration between strategy and operations, and integration across elements of the value chain. The second attribute, customer orientation, focuses on customer linkages and includes financial and customer measures. The third dimension, supplier orientation, is based on linkages to suppliers and includes business process and innovation measures. A model is developed that predicts that integrative SPMS will enhance the strategic competitiveness of organizations. It is proposed that the influence of integrative SPMS on strategic outcomes is indirect through the mediating roles of alignment of manufacturing with strategy and organizational learning. Data from a survey of 80 strategic business units provide varying support for the proposed relationships.     

Imagination workshops: An empirical exploration of SFP for technology-based business innovation

This article explores the potential use of Science Fiction Prototypes (SFPs) as a vehicle to promote creative thinking and innovation in the business and technology development process. In particular, the paper describes a tool, “The Imagination Workshop”, which business people can use to drive near and far term product innovation, futuristic business and entrepreneurship. A key contribution of this article is the use of a modified evolutionary model of the Science Fiction Prototyping creation process (cyclic SFP), which, instead of being linear process (as in earlier approaches), is based around a set of feedback loops in the form of an iterative evolutionary co-creative process. In addition, the paper describes how the SFP methodology has been applied to business innovation and entrepreneurship in two small UK companies. Finally, it reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of these methods from a business perspective.     

The innovation value chain

The challenges of coming up with fresh ideas and realizing profits from them are different for every company. One firm may excel at finding good ideas but may have weak systems for bringing them to market. Another organization may have a terrific process for funding and rolling out new products and services but a shortage of concepts to develop. In this article, Hansen and Birkinshaw caution executives against using the latest and greatest innovation approaches and tools without understanding the unique deficiencies in their companies' innovation systems. They offer a framework for evaluating innovation performance: the innovation value chain. It comprises the three main phases of innovation (idea generation, conversion, and diffusion) as well as the critical activities performed during those phases (looking for ideas inside your unit; looking for them in other units; looking for them externally; selecting ideas; funding them; and promoting and spreading ideas companywide). Using this framework, managers get an end-to-end view of their innovation efforts. They can pinpoint their weakest links and tailor innovation best practices appropriately to strengthen those links. Companies typically succumb to one of three broad "weakest-link" scenarios. They are idea poor, conversion poor, or diffusion poor. The article looks at the ways smart companies - including Intuit, P&G, Sara Lee, Shell, and Siemens- modify the best innovation practices and apply them to address those organizations' individual needs and flaws. The authors warn that adopting the chain-based view of innovation requires new measures of what can be delivered by each link in the chain. The approach also entails new roles for employees "external scouts" and "internal evangelists," for example. Indeed, in their search for new hires, companies should seek out those candidates who can help address particular weaknesses in the innovation value chain.     

Enablers of top management team support for integrated management control systems innovations

Top management team (TMT) support has been identified as one of the most important critical factors to the success of management control systems (MCS) innovations. However, prior studies have taken TMT support for MCS innovations as a given rather than considering the factors that determine whether that support will actually exist and the extent thereof. Prior studies also follow a monolithic approach and treat TMT support for MCS innovations as a black box rather than a combination of processes and stages that develop sequentially over time. We conceptualise TMT support for MCS innovations as consisting of two stages (TMT belief and participation in MCS innovations). We draw on Upper Echelon and knowledge creation theories to motivate and test four enablers of TMT support for an integrated MCS innovation. We theorize the four enablers as TMT's strategic IT knowledge, TMT knowledge creation processes, CIO's strategic business and IT knowledge, and the interaction between TMT and the CIO. We test the research model using survey data that was collected from 347 Australian organisations. The results from the data analyses confirm the hypothesised relationships, supporting the theorized synergies among the four antecedents to TMT support. There are several implications for theory and practice that should be considered in future studies examining the role of TMT in supporting new MCS innovations.     

Making strategy: learning by doing

Companies find it difficult to change strategy for many reasons, but one stands out: strategic thinking is not a core managerial competence at most companies. Executives hone their capabilities by tackling problems over and over again. Changing strategy, however, is not usually a task that they face repeatedly. Once companies have found a strategy that works, they want to use it, not change it. Consequently, most managers do not develop a competence in strategic thinking. This Manager's Tool Kit presents a three-stage method executives can use to conceive and implement a creative and coherent strategy themselves. The first stage is to identify and map the driving forces that the company needs to address. The process of mapping provides strategy-making teams with visual representations of team members' assumptions, those pictures, in turn, enable managers to achieve consensus in determining the driving forces. Once a senior management team has formulated a new strategy, it must align the strategy with the company's resource-allocation process to make implementation possible. Senior management teams can translate their strategy into action by using aggregate project planning. And management teams that link strategy and innovation through that planning process will develop a competence in implementing strategic change. The author guides the reader through the three stages of strategy making by examining the case of a manufacturing company that was losing ground to competitors. After mapping the driving forces, the company's senior managers were able to devise a new strategy that allowed the business to maintain a competitive advantage in its industry.     

An exploratory study on the emergence of management control systems: formalizing human resources in small growing firms

The adoption of management control systems (MCS) is a key element in managing the tension that growth imposes on young growing firms. Despite its importance to a large number of organizations, only recently has the empirical literature devoted attention to the evolution of these systems over the lifecycle of firms [Moores and Yuen, Account. Organizat. Soc. 26 (2001) 351]. This paper builds upon existing management control theory, mostly focused on established organizations, and existing predictions based on extended field observations to explore how these systems are adopted within growing firms. To advance theory, the paper also draws from the entrepreneurship and life cycle literatures. It identifies several variables as drivers of the emergence of management control systems including the size of the organization, its age, the replacement of the founder as CEO, and the existence of outside investors. The empirical evidence, from a database on the adoption of human resource management systems, is consistent with these variables being associated with the adoption of MCS. The paper also provides initial results on how the emergence of various types of management control systems depends on which systems the organization has already adopted.     

STRATEGIC PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS: TRANSLATING STRATEGY INTO RESULTS

A large and growing number of companies worldwide are adopting strategic performance measurement (SPM) systems to help them execute their business strategies. SPM systems use some combination of financial, strategic, and operating measures to evaluate management's success in improving operating efficiency and adding value for shareholders. In many cases, the SPMs also provide the primary basis for rewarding top management, divisional operating managers, and, increasingly, rank‐and‐file employees. Some SPM systems are based entirely on a financial measure like economic value added (or EVA), which encourages managers to consider the opportunity cost of investor capital in making all operating and investment decisions. Other systems are based heavily on nonfinancial considerations, such as the balanced scorecard's emphasis on customer and employee satisfaction, operational excellence, and new product introduction. In this article, the author uses the findings of his recent survey of 113 North American and European companies to shed light on a number of questions: What are the most popular measures in such systems—are they primarily financial, nonfinancial, or amix of the two? To what extent is incentive compensation tied to such measures—and how far down in the organization are such measures (and incentives) extended? What are the most formidable challenges to implementing SPM systems in large corporations, with often diverse collections of businesses and tens if not hundreds of thousands of employees? Among the article's most notable conclusions, a majority of companies expect in the next three years to publish SPM targets and results in their annual reports. The most commonly cited financial SPMs will be cash flow, return on capital employed, and other variations of EVA. The most frequently cited nonfinancial SPMs are customer satisfaction, market share, and new product development. The greatest challenge in implementing SPMs is translating the vision and strategic objectives at the corporate level into performance measures that are relevant to activities at the business unit level, and securing buy‐in from business unit managers and employees.     

How control systems influence product innovation processes: examining the role of entrepreneurial orientation

This paper yields insights into the channels through which management accounting and control systems (MACS) exert an influence on product innovation by examining the extent to which different forms of control (i.e. value systems (VS), diagnostic control systems and interactive control systems (ICS)) are directly associated with the distinct phases of innovation processes. Using survey data collected from 118 medium and large Spanish companies, we find that (1) VS and ICS have significant main effects on the creativity, co-ordination and knowledge integration, and filtering (sub-)phases of innovation processes and (2) the significance and direction of these influences vary depending on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of firms. By highlighting the relevance of EO in shaping the influence of MACS on product innovation processes, this study calls for caution in generalising the expected effects of MACS on innovation.     

券商集合资产管理业务发展及监管对策探析

证券公司综合治理前资产管理业务极不规范。综合治理为券商集合资产管理业务规范发展奠定了制度基础,集合资产管理业务重获新生,得到了很大发展。本文着重分析了券商集合资产管理业务发展中存在的规模弱小、运行效率不高、产品销售存在制约、产品发行与投资主流和市场运行存在偏差、风险管理与产品创新不够等问题,提出了树立"逆周期监管"理念,放松管制,加强监管,拓展营销,鼓励券商进行业务创新等推动集合资产管理业务持续健康发展的监管对策。     

Why change programs don't produce change

Faced with changing markets and tougher competition, more and more companies realize that to compete effectively they must transform how they function. But while senior managers understand the necessity of change, they often misunderstand what it takes to bring it about. They assume that corporate renewal is the product of company-wide change programs and that in order to transform employee behavior, they must alter a company's formal structure and systems. Both these assumptions are wrong, say these authors. Using examples drawn from their four-year study of organizational change at six large corporations, they argue that change programs are, in fact, the greatest obstacle to successful revitalization and that formal structures and systems are the last thing a company should change, not the first. The most successful change efforts begin at the periphery of a corporation, in a single plant or division. Such efforts are led by general managers, not the CEO or corporate staff people. And these general managers concentrate not on changing formal structures and systems but on creating ad hoc organizational arrangements to solve concrete business problems. This focuses energy for change on the work itself, not on abstractions such as "participation" or "culture." Once general managers understand the importance of this grass-roots approach to change, they don't have to wait for senior management to start a process of corporate renewal. The authors describe a six-step change process they call the "critical path."     

Putting the enterprise into the enterprise system

Enterprise systems present a new model of corporate computing. They allow companies to replace their existing information systems, which are often incompatible with one another, with a single, integrated system. By streamlining data flows throughout an organization, these commercial software packages, offered by vendors like SAP, promise dramatic gains in a company's efficiency and bottom line. It's no wonder that businesses are rushing to jump on the ES bandwagon. But while these systems offer tremendous rewards, the risks they carry are equally great. Not only are the systems expensive and difficult to implement, they can also tie the hands of managers. Unlike computer systems of the past, which were typically developed in-house with a company's specific requirements in mind, enterprise systems are off-the-shelf solutions. They impose their own logic on a company's strategy, culture, and organization, often forcing companies to change the way they do business. Managers would do well to heed the horror stories of failed implementations. FoxMeyer Drug, for example, claims that its system helped drive it into bankruptcy. Drawing on examples of both successful and unsuccessful ES projects, the author discusses the pros and cons of implementing an enterprise system, showing how a system can produce unintended and highly disruptive consequences. Because of an ES's profound business implications, he cautions against shifting responsibility for its adoption to technologists. Only a general manager will be able to mediate between the imperatives of the system and the imperatives of the business.     

How to identify your enemies before they destroy you

We've all heard the stories about corporate giants who ignored disruptive innovations and paid a steep price: Think what the personal computer did to Digital or Japanese economy cars did to the Big Three automakers. Big companies now spend a lot of time and money trying to make sure they don't get blindsided by their smaller, leaner counterparts. But it's not easy to distinguish genuine threats from also-rans as they emerge. Most of the nascent technologies that typically bombard executives will not amount to competitive threats and deserve to be ignored. As a result, disruptions are usually not taken seriously until they become obvious--when it's often too late. A disruptive innovation is a technology, product, or process that creeps up from below an existing business and threatens to displace it. Usually, the disrupter offers lower performance and less functionality at a much lower price. The product or process is good enough to meet some customers' needs; others welcome the disruption's simplicity. Gradually, it improves to the point where it displaces the incumbent. But, the authors argue, disruption isn't inevitable. They have developed a tool that can help companies detect potential disruptive innovations while management still has time to respond effectively. The tool's decision-making methodology harnesses the organization's collective wisdom to determine how likely it is that a particular innovation will seriously damage an incumbent's business. The methodology has two components: an analytical instrument and an organizational process. There's nothing magical about it--but it gets managers to think systematically about identifying and addressing threats to the core business. And the tool's rigorous approach can spell the difference between flailing around and acting effectively in the face of a serious competitive threat.     

The control dynamics of outsourcing involving an early-stage firm

Firms in the early stage of their organisational lifecycle experience challenges that shape the adoption of management controls. They are also recognised for their use of outsourcing. However, the accounting research has provided limited insight on how these control challenges and inter-organisational control concerns interact to influence the adoption of specific controls within an outsourcing relationship involving an early-stage firm. Exploration of this gap provides a key motivation for this paper. Contrary to existing management control and organisational science literature, we find a strong preference for new or enhanced action controls. Conversely, we find low levels of interest in result controls by managers within the buyer but not the supplier firm. These preferences influence inter-organisational control adoption within the frame of an incomplete outsourcing contract that emphasises flexibility in terms of relationship exit. Within the limits of a case study methodology, we argue that adoption of inter-organisational controls is shaped by tensions between the control challenges of early-stage firms, the control preferences of managers within these firms and inter-organisational control concerns. These findings have theoretical implications, expanding the Davila et al. [2009. Reasons for management control systems adoption: insights from product development systems choice by early-stage entrepreneurial companies. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 34 (3–4), 322–347] framework and the Merchant [1985. Control in Business Organizations. Boston, MA: Pitman] control typology into an ESF inter-organisational control context.     

Economic benefits of enterprise resource planning systems: some empirical evidence

The present study provides empirical evidence on the economic benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. We use a modified value chain approach and identify several ratios for each component of the value chain to reflect improvements as a result of the adoption of ERP systems. These financial ratios are tracked for 2 years for a group of companies that adopted ERP systems versus a group of companies that did not adopt ERP. Both univariate and multivariate statistics are used to test for differences. The key result of the present study is that the adoption of ERP systems leads to sustained operational efficiencies and improved overall liquidity. In addition, some support is found for increased profitability 2 years after the adoption of ERP and for improvements in accounts receivable management.